Homeowners could find tax bills troubling

Carbon reassessment may bring triple-digit hike for some county residents.

Tomorrow's Taxes: Carbon County's Reassessment

March 18, 2001|By DAVID SLADE Of The Morning Call

In just a few weeks, nearly half the property owners in Jim Thorpe will learn their county property taxes have doubled, or worse, in the wake of Carbon County's first tax reassessment since 1969.

In neighboring Penn Forest Township, nine out of 10 will see lower tax bills.

Those are among the most dramatic property tax shifts as 85 percent of Carbon County property owners will see their taxes rise or fall by at least 10 percent because of the reassessment, a Morning Call analysis found.

Thousands of property owners successfully appealed the new values placed on their land, homes and businesses last year, but the tax increases brought by reassessment will be more dramatic than the decreases.

An analysis of the reassessment records found that:

The majority, nearly 3,200, of those who appealed won reductions from the Carbon County Board of Assessment Appeals, with half winning an assessment cut of $4,800 or more.

Taxes on close to a third of properties will fall by 25 percent or more.

Taxes on nearly a quarter of properties will rise by at least 50 percent.

When county tax bills arrive in the mail next month, property owners confused by their new assessments will see for the first time how they translate to dollars and cents.

"I think people have seen the numbers, but they don't really know what they mean," said Bill Diehm, a Jim Thorpe homeowner. "When the tax bills come out, that's when there will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Telephone calls to a random sampling of homeowners found many had no idea if their taxes would rise or fall, although they have known their new assessments since last summer. Several who will see their taxes drop by 50 percent or more thought instead that they would go up, not realizing that tax rates have to be recalculated lower when assessments rise.

"A lot of people came in and had absolutely no idea what was going on," said Norman Bachart, a member of the Board of Assessment Appeals. "Especially the elderly people."

On a broad scale, what the new assessments mean is a significant change in distribution of the tax burden in Carbon County, and within each of its five school districts and the Hazleton Area School District, in Luzerne County. Some Carbon municipalities are part of the Hazleton district.

While the number of properties that will see increases and decreases is split almost evenly -- 52 percent will see decreases -- the numbers are far from evenly distributed.

More than half of the 22,300 properties in Carbon County that will get tax decreases are in Penn Forest Township, which has tripled in population during the past 20 years.

It was primarily Penn Forest and Kidder township residents who sued the county in 1994, and after a long court fight forced the county to reassess for the first time since 1969.

Assuming the new property values are correct, they indicate most residents of the townships were paying too much for years. Other fast-growing townships with newer homes also will see more tax decreases than increases because of the reassessment.

Diehm believes it has a lot to do with how recently houses were built and assessed.

He built his home 10 years ago and is among only a few hundred Jim Thorpe residents whose taxes won't rise this year because of the reassessment.

His mother, who lives in an older home in the borough, will see her tax bills jump 160 percent or more.

"Some of the older homes were really out of line," said Diehm, a Mack Truck employee who is also the borough's fire chief. "The elderly people living in these old homes, that's where the burden is going to fall."

That shouldn't be true, because assessments are supposed to be adjusted as time passes so that new homes and old ones are similarly valued, but that appears to be the case in Carbon County.

David Ratacjzak, director of the county Tax Assessment Office, couldn't be reached for comment about his office's past assessment practices. He was suspended without pay Wednesday amid a criminal investigation of what the district attorney called "discrepancies" in his office's computerized records.

The investigation is the only scandal to pop up during the reassessment process, but there has been much to criticize; from assessment notices mailed to incorrect addresses to an appeals process that then-President Judge John P. Lavelle ruled had violated the due process rights of those who appealed. Lavelle retired recently and is now a senior judge.

"I think the appeal process really stank," said Palmerton Councilman Terry Costenbader. Taxes on a double home on Lehigh Avenue that he owned until recently will rise at least 150 percent this year.

"I tried to appeal, but it didn't do anything, so we just gave up," said Edward Becker, whose sold his former home on Center Avenue in Jim Thorpe and moved to Penn Forest Township after the reassessment.

Carole Walbert, a lawyer who handled many appeals, and whose case led to Lavelle's ruling, believes many properties in Jim Thorpe were overvalued during reassessment.

She said people there are angry, and some are pointing fingers at Penn Forest and Kidder townships.

"They very much see this as people who moved to Penn Forest from out of the area bringing a form of punishment on them," Walbert said. "One of the reasons there is so much anger in Jim Thorpe is that there are so many older people who are retired."

For many, the arrival next month of county tax bills will make clear what has really happened, and how much it will cost.